I first attended the summer program in 1996, and from the very beginning Tom made me feel appreciated and supported. He was dedicated to making the Music and Sound program at the Banff Centre a welcoming place for artists. A simple idea, but in no other environment have I felt so well understood and free to learn. Tom and his wife Isobel knew that the greatest gift they could give to an artist was a place where they were treated like artists, trusted as artists and given everything they needed to function as artists.

Through his life and his ideals, he has touched the lives of so many people. He had so much love to give, and he receives so much love back in return.

Edit: Here’s an excerpt from a wonderful note by Myra Davies (full text here)

One of my earliest music presentations came about when Tom came to my office of UofA, introduced himself and suggested a series of lunch hour concerts with his Alberta String Quartet, at SUB Gallery. “Music to the people” Later at Banff, Tom & family formed the nucleus of the music program; interpretive artists, dedicated to classical rep, radiating the vibe, promoting continuity, generating energy, forming artists and producing concerts non-stop.

It was wonderful to work with them in their vibrant dedicated international community. Classical music isn’t dead. It’s closer to immortal. Constantly regenerating itself, it moves steadily through time on a conveyor belt of dedicated artists who serve it and pass it on to those they’ve trained. Through the Rolston years, I watched individual artist, rising and descending in power, and knew many of them. They’re amazing. They will play on until they drop, even when demented or terminally ill they keep on playing and doing concerts.

The subculture of contemporary arts tends to hostility to the classical music scene. I wonder if some of this attitude is because they have what we don’t; a rock solid belief in the lasting significance of the work they service. Each to his own. I’m so thankful that way back when, Tom Rolston invited me into his world.

Edit 2:

No obit in the Globe and Mail, but the Calgary Herald was the first to memorialize him.

Edit 3:

Obit in the Globe and Mail by Tamara Bernstein.

Jun 2, 2008

This week’s diarist is Gregory Oh, artistic director of the highly acclaimed new music group Toca Loca, with Simon Docking and Aiyun Huang. He is the newest member of the musical staff of the Canadian Opera Company, and teaches at the University of Toronto. He kept his diary earlier this month.

“It must be so great making a living doing what you love!”

My friend Simon Docking (a fellow pianist) and I discussed our growing aversion to this cliched phrase over lunch today.

I am often tempted to respond with the truth– that what I really love doing is sleeping with beautiful women, which rarely proves profitable.

Simon and I are currently awash in the whirlwind of soundaXis, a three-week festival of art, music, architecture and ideas in Toronto. These days, a typical day consists of rehearsals from 9 a. m. to 9 p. m., with breaks for meals. Sometimes one needs to arrive at least one hour in advance to unload and set up gear, and more often than not, one uses most of the break time furiously practising, stealing mouthfuls of fast food and slugs of caffeine in between page turns. After one such day, I headed straight to my studio to learn the material for the next day’s work, got home around 3 a. m. and set my alarm for 7:30. After three weeks with “what I love,” I may be in the market for an affair.

Practising is part of a musicians’ life, and always a source of guilt. It is something easy to get out of and hard to see through, but it is the crucial link to keeping music a vocation, not just a job. It is where we experiment, discover and grow, and it is how we protect our artistic integrity. Recently, a much-anticipated date ended quite disastrously: “Maybe you should leave before you wear out your welcome.” Wounded and glum, I found myself in my studio, where I picked pieces at random and played for hours. It felt great, so I guess practising can also be a source of comfort.

In the end, I think it is just a misunderstanding. When people dress up in their Savile Row suits and head off to Bay Street, they are heading off to work. It is not surprising that they would cast an envious eye upon those lucky enough to spend their days “playing.”

Jun 3, 2008

This week’s diarist is Gregory Oh, artistic director of the highly acclaimed new music group Toca Loca. Oh is perfoming in the soundaXis ‘08 New Music festival, which runs to June 15. He kept his diary earlier this month.

It is widely accepted in the worlds of politics, big business and marriage that you should never utter those three damning words: I don’t know.

What is your position on buying polycarbonate from orphans in Tajikistan?

Where is the marketing report that was due last Friday?

When is our anniversary?

SoundaXis’s Music for 6008 Spokes is a “cyclist as musician” show that took place on Saturday afternoon. It included a bicycle ballet written by Julia Aplin and John Gzowski and danced/cycled by students from Etobicoke School of the Arts. Also on the bill was Eine Brise (by Mauricio Kagel) for mass formation of cyclists.

The “piece” consisted of a diagrammed formation of up to 111 “musicians” on bicycles who rode past the audience and at specified points carried out five actions, including ringing their bells, singing, whistling or making “wind noises.” Whenever I’ve shown the score to someone, they’ve invariably asked the same questions:

What does it sound like? Is it a good piece?

What is the artistic message being communicated?

This time, instead of unleashing the standard academic mumbo jumbo, I just told the truth: “I don’t know.” I followed with an “I have no idea” and finished with a vicious “Your guess is as good as mine!”

“I don’t know.” You should try it. It’s very liberating.

Jun 4, 2008

This week’s diarist is Gregory Oh, artistic director of the highly acclaimed new music group Toca Loca. Oh is perfoming in the soundaXis ‘08 New Music festival, which runs to June 15. He kept his diary earlier this month.

My inbox is currently packed with emails about upcoming CBC protests.

By the age of 10, I was already a faithful CBC listener. It was there on long rides in the family Volvo and I have fond memories of falling asleep to radio dramas or Brave New Waves. I lived in the U. S. for three years, and man did I miss the CBC.

There are things that sadden me about the changes and the rhetoric-laced debate. To those who protest — when was the last time stable funding to the CBC was made into an election issue? Supplementary: How often has this pledge been honoured?

I applaud the PR master-mind who framed the debate as classical vs. pop, because it should be about advocating for intelligent and original programming. I don’t think we need more Karajan or more Krall. Instead of asking “How can we capture the 30-to-49s?” the CBC should have asked, “What can we do that an iPod can’t?”

I love Joni Mitchell, but when I want to hear her, I lovingly finger my shiny touchscreen, not my yellowed radio dial. The CBC is the smart geeky kid trying to be a cool preppy, but it’ll never be hip as long as it needs consultants to define the concept; by the time they get the report, it’s already so six months ago.

The buzz is that they’re willing to lose 40% of their core audience to tap the “younger” demographic. It’s time to upgrade to the 32GB model.

Jun 5, 2008

This week’s diarist is Gregory Oh, artistic director of the highly acclaimed new music group Toca Loca. Oh is perfoming in the soundaXis ‘08 New Music festival, which runs to June 15. He kept his diary earlier this month.

“What should I be thinking about while performing?”

One of my cast members asked me this question today; I found it easy to answer, but difficult to answer well.

I’ve read interviews with high-performance athletes where they detail their exact mental process, from gun to finish line. I marvel at the precise mental choreography that is required for a performance where 0.01 seconds can spell the difference between fame and failure.

Personally, I’ve given some of my best performances while brain-dead and jet-lagged, or daydreaming about my next meal, or one time in Austria, winking at the cute blond in the upper balcony.

“Concentrate, focus, think about the music.” This kind of advice sounds like a homecoming cheer, and is equally useful. It’s the equivalent of answering “How will I know if it’s love?” with “You’ll just know.” Gee, thanks.

The pianist Anton Kuerti once advised me to “try to play one perfect phrase. If the first phrase isn’t perfect, move on to the next, and so on. It takes the pressure off.” And if you manage one perfect phrase? “Try for two.”

According to the pianist Gyorgy Sebok, learning is a constructive, meticulous process, but when performing, the challenge is forgetting everything you’ve learned. Violinist David Takeno offered this similar step-by-step approach:

1. Instinct

2. Intellect

3. Instinct.

I suppose what separates a musician from, say, a figure skater is that the latter would probably be thrilled to perfectly reproduce what they had done in practice, whereas I would just be bored. So — what should you be thinking about when performing? Trust your instincts and figure it out yourself…or play on an empty stomach. – Tomorrow: Life isn’t simple, so why should music be?

Jun 6, 2008

This week’s diarist is Gregory Oh, artistic director of the new music group Toca Loca. Oh is perfoming in the soundaXis ‘08 New Music festival, which runs to June 15. He kept his diary earlier this month.

I’ve been reading Phoebe Tsang’s latest chapbook, To Kiss the Ground, and today I shared it with one of my “new music” colleagues, who responded, “I don’t always like poetry, but I really liked reading her work!”

Phoebe was flattered, wryly describing the collection as accessible– “It doesn’t have to be a bad thing– to me it means that I didn’t arbitrarily cut words into tiny pieces, didn’t restrict myself to seven-syllable adjectives and every once in a while, I used a normal sentence structure.”

I’ve been thinking about accessibility and new music, especially amidst soundaXis. While I scoff at those who consider Messiaen’s work to be “contemporary” and find my-self railing against traditional harmony and the “neo-romantics” (the scarlet letter!), the last time my parents heard one of my concerts their response was, “Well… we can’t understand it, but we’re proud of you anyway!”

When I try to enter the world of the poetic avant-garde, I struggle to find meaning and often come away empty-handed, or at least empty-headed. As I guiltily reach for Tennyson and Dickinson, the irony is not lost on me.

To paraphrase (and mash up) two eminent composers, John Beckwith and Henry Brant, appreciating some music requires you to be an active and engaged listener, which is hard work. Life isn’t simple, so why should music be?

I suppose in the end it’s all about finding your own balance. Next weekend I plan to throw something lyrical on the MP3 player and curl up with some Christian Bok.

Credit: Gregory Oh; National Post

Check out this post if you are interested in helping out.

Thanks!

Under a threatening sky, about 100 cyclists gathered last Saturday at the track field of King Edward Public School. They braved a downpour that held off just long enough for them to create a double-bill performance of Mauricio Kagel’s musical composition Eine Brise for 111 cyclists, plus Toronto choreographer Julia Aplin’s Bicycle Ballet, set to music by John Gzowski. The event, titled Music for 6,008 Spokes, was conceived by musician Gregory Oh for the SoundaXis festival of new music.

To open, an assortment of cyclists performed the experimental Eine Brise, which consisted of riders taking stately circles around the track to chants, whirs, ululations and, of course, bicycle bells, mixed with the sounds of passing airplanes, rising wind in the trees and ominous growls of low thunder.

The volunteer performers seemed to grow braver with each revolution; eventually adding whoops, snorts and operatic trills. The effect resembled some sort of alien whale song. The performers didn’t quite add

up to 111. “If you count tandems, I think we were close to 60,” estimated Oh. Nonetheless, he was “thrilled” with the results.

As the sedate ensemble pedalled off the field, they were replaced by a more energetic pack of 16 young performers from a troupe called DancESAtion, based at the Etobicoke School of the Arts. Dressed in an array of tutus, sequins, tiaras and pink wardrobe pieces, they rode their way through Bicycle Ballet. It resembled a cross between synchronized swim and the Mounties’ Musical Ride, with an interpolated bike-bell performance of the Blue Danube Waltz (spontaneously assisted by numerous audience members).

Although Oh won’t promise a repeat performance, he is contemplating further bike-related music projects: “Toronto is becoming more and more a bike city, so I think we’re going to be seeing more bike art.”

SoundaXis ( soundaxis.ca)continues to June 15.

Credit: Sarah B. Hood; National Post

We are looking for 111 volunteers to ride in a piece called Eine Brise by Mauricio Kagel. It is not a difficult piece and you do not need to be a trained musician! What you do need to be able to do is:

1. Ride a bike safely at a fixed, leisurely pace in a formation.

2. Have a bell or horn on your bike.

3. Be able to whistle or make wind noises.

4. Be willing to sing – you don’t need to be able to sing in tune – and make noises.

5. Be committed to coming and riding on the 31st of May, a lovely Saturday afternoon, for a 3 pm concert with a rehearsal that will take place on the same day somewhere between 12-3. Probably 1 pm – this will firm up as we get closer.

6. Be willing to be filmed, recorded and/or photographed.

For those interested in riding in Eine Brise, a piece by Mauricio Kagel for 111 Cyclists, please email me. 6008@ the domain name you are currently visiting (gregoryoh dot com). If you can’t figure that out, write a comment with your email and I’ll send it to you.

You need to send me your name, your email and phone number. We will confirm via email/phone and send you some instructions closer to the day.

Anyone can come and play Terry Riley’s In C. Just bring an instrument or your voice if you wish, plus a copy of the music. You can find it in many libraries, or here is a link to the music (it is only two pages):

In C score

Thanks!

Greg and Sean

Q:  Do you still need cyclists?  A:  YES!!!
Q:  Is it hard?  A: NO!!!!  (5 easy instructions)
Q:  Is it fast?  A:  NO!  (easy, comfortable pace, riding in formation)
Q:  Is Eine Brise a good piece?  A:  I have no idea…
Q:  When is the rehearsal?  A:  Earlier that day – probably around noon or 1 pm.

PATRICIA O’CALLAGHAN

Premiere Dance Theatre, Toronto

It’s disconcerting when the singer is stage left and her voice is stage right. Especially when the amplification makes it sound as if she’s even further away — on the line from Sydney, perhaps. Then, while you’re trying to take this in, you notice she’s limping. She’s come on stage with one high heel on her foot, the other in her hand.

In the midst of all this, it hardly registers that she’s warbling Kurt Weill — a composer usually associated with guttural recitation that aspires to song only wearily — like a Mozart soubrette. “I’m a stranger here myself,” she sings. You’re not the only one feeling a bit disoriented, Miss O’Callaghan.

At 28, the native of Dryden, Ont., is enjoying plenty of publicity for her take on Weill, other European cabaret composers of the same between-the-wars era, and a few choices of her own thrown into the mixture. Go to her gigs and you’ll hear Poulenc, Leonard Cohen and Tom Jones rubbing shoulders with The Rocky Horror Picture Show and Chopin. It ought not to work. And it doesn’t, quite.

Three people are credited with directing her current show at the Premiere Dance Theatre. Yet the overriding impression is of someone having a go at as many popular styles as possible, with very little thought for the structure or rhythm of the sequence. Randy Newman’s Real Emotional Girl makes the first intimate contact with the udience and could prepare the way for two or three more quiet, soulful numbers. But immediately she gurgles “Tragedy is for suckers!” grabs a tambourine and sprints around stage trilling It’s Not Unsual.

Working an audience in this repertoire depends on establishing a consistent character, at least for each group of songs. That character can be the singer’s own, or a part she or he is playing. What O’Callaghan put across most obviously before intermission was a lack of confidence. If you’re going to wiggle your svelte buttocks at an audience, you ought to suggest that you’re enjoying it and invite them to do the same.

The interventions of Mark Christmann as “a man” are amusing but confusing. He’s planted in the audience, and responds to the star’s request for a water bottle. This creates a bewildering context for the next song, Sondheim’s Losing My Mind, a heartrendingly accurate dissection of the obsessional nature of adulterous love. Is she singing it to Christmann? Apparently not.

Later, he climbs on stage as her dance partner for Cohen’s Take this Waltz, and flits in and out of the action whenever (you guess) there’s a worry the audience’s attention might be drifting. It is unfortunate that he looks so much happier on stage than she does.

By the first night’s second half, the electronic mangling of the vocals had been fixed, though not the discrepancy between the artist’s position and the apparent source of the sound. She sings well, mostly. Although it’s weird to hear these hard-bitten songs floated in a chaste soprano, she has the advantage of a light voice – - this isn’t one of those ghastly Brunnhilde-sings-Broadway crossover experiences. If you are going to visit such diva-trampled territory as Weill, it’s essential to bring something new. She’s attempting that, to her credit.

O’Callaghan was accompanied by the attentive and discreet percussionist Trevor Tureski, and the diligent but sometimes dull Gregory Oh on piano. Torch songs in particular suffered from mutual tentativeness from singer and pianist.

Patricia O’Callaghan has potential. She has talent. She has good looks. Cabaret songs may or may not be the repertoire in which she eventually excels. This local girl needs a firmer grasp of stagecraft and more help with structuring a show if she is going to make good. Meanwhile, can somebody explain that business with the shoes?